~My cats are wondering about the latest 'kitty fad' 100% natural food - The Mouse Diet ! 
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Grain-free not so good?
- Thread starter galabean
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~My cats are wondering about the latest 'kitty fad' 100% natural food - The Mouse Diet ! ~- Joined
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It's expensive. Willow gets about half and half whole prey and prepared raw but we're very lucky to have a local rodentry that doesn't charge very much. The animals are treated very well and humanely euthanized, since they are from pet bloodlines. This matters to me, but might not to everybody.
I can't really be expected to be objective, but this kitten has the most amazing coat, temperament, and generally much better health than any of my other cats, who were all fed kibble or grocery store canned foods back in the days when the dinosaurs roamed the earth and we thought that nothing like the 2007ish melamine incident could ever happen.
I didn't know whole prey was the latest fad; I just thought we were weird.
~ Yes we are weird - but that makes us "special".... this kitten has the most amazing coat, temperament, and generally much better health than any of my other cats
I didn't know whole prey was the latest fad; I just thought we were weird.
People I talk to that cook/make the cat food or feed raw tell me the same thing. Kitty stays satisfied longer, eats less, etc. If I did not have so many cats I would give it a try myself.
All you can do is your best. My cousin's cat lived to be 21 on Meow Mix. My childhood dog lived to be 16 on food from back in the day that I'm sure had little resemblance to a good diet, it was what they had at the time. I feed my cat decent food from the boutique pet food store. I don't really avoid any ingredients except corn. My cat food budget is probably higher than some people's. My cat isn't bothered by any particular ingredient, maybe peas if the food is REALLY pea based, so I have it easy in that respect. I feed a huge variety, so if anything is bad, or lack of anything is bad, her diet isn't heavy or light on any one thing. That's my solution.
I also don't get too into "that isn't in a cat's natural diet." Except for the carnivore part. Cats eating their "natural diet" in the wild aren't necessarily healthy and certainly don't live as long as we expect our cats to live. In other words, yes, my cat gets fish!
I also don't get too into "that isn't in a cat's natural diet." Except for the carnivore part. Cats eating their "natural diet" in the wild aren't necessarily healthy and certainly don't live as long as we expect our cats to live. In other words, yes, my cat gets fish!
But is that because of diet or because they dont have medical care?
my cat won’t touch most of the expensive brands anyway.~ From my learning I highly doubt there actually is "good high quality cat food " unless we make our own. However there is better and worse. I read ingredients and stay with big brand names as they produce & sell large volume, are inspected more often and have less problems with quality control.
Dry food in general is not so good for kitty. The ones with meat/poultry as first ingredients are best. I no longer use grain-free unless it's on sale cheap.
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The carnivore part is a cat's natural diet. Meat.
To which I would also add predators and other threats that indoor cats don't face.
That too. I took my rabbit in to the vet for his annual exam which we also have them clean his scent glands out because they can clog with a waxy substance and get infected. We were talking with the vet and she said while a pet rabbit can live to be 15 years old a wild rabbit will only be 1 maybe 2 when they die. Predators eat them, they get hurt or injured and are easy prey or they get sick or injured and starve before they heal enough to forge or a secondary infection sets in. Scent glands clogging isn't an issue for wild rabbits because they simply dont live long enough but pet rabbits get problems like GI Stasis, infections from glands and obesity simply from living long enough to have problems. It doesn't mean their natural diet isn't their ideal diet, it's what they have evolved for and is the optimized diet for maximum health during their short lives, it means they have a hard life in the wild and something will kill them before the other things have time to be a problem.
Same theory, different species.
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I would like to point out that Meow Mix 21+ years ago isn't the same as Meow Mix today (go back far enough and Friskies used to be dog food). Formulas change constantly and companies are always looking to cut back on expenses. Prior to 1950 pet food was meat, then WWII and pet food went dry in response to shortages of materials and supplies. But corn and wheat production wasnt at the levels it is now and the technology to make kibble wasnt where it is now until the 1970s. The 1970s is when it became cheaper to increase grain content along with more practical as technology to make kibble changed and needs a creamier paste to push through forms. The 1980s is when people started to even question pet food after thousands of pets died from contamination in the corn meal used.
Even today, the food you feed you cat this year might not be the same as next year even if you dont change brand or label that you buy.
Yes, recipes change constantly! And our cats notice the differences. I don't check ingredients every time I buy so I occasionally miss changes until the cats refuse to eat their food. I'm trying to get better about checking labels and pet food company sites but it's a never-ending task.
I believe on the Catinfo.org web site somwhere Dr. Lisa says something like "there's a difference between surviving on food and thriving on food". A cat can survive on cheap cat food to 20 years old but won't necessarily thrive on it.
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People who feed fresh raw meat, organs, and bones know the difference that it makes in a cat’s health because we observe it daily. Softer fur, less shedding, few to no hairballs, more energy, healthier poops, the list goes on.
I switched from dry free fed with one wet meal and one wet snack to dry free fed with two wet meals and notice the difference (and the wet has low carb). They are eating enough wet that we are going through the same amount of dry in three months as we used to in one month. Even with just that switch I can tell the difference in their coat. I am sure raw would have even more difference.
I saw a pretty big difference just switching from mid-grade dry food to all Friskies pate. Cats need meat.
The dog thing, at this point, seems to be linked to legumes. So when people say it's caused by "grain-free" food, well, it depends. Is the food grain-free because they replaced the grains with legumes? That's bad! Or is it grain-free because it's mostly meat? That's good!
The dog thing, at this point, seems to be linked to legumes. So when people say it's caused by "grain-free" food, well, it depends. Is the food grain-free because they replaced the grains with legumes? That's bad! Or is it grain-free because it's mostly meat? That's good!
Pretty much. I saw one summary that said the four Ls are all possibility at this point for dogs having increased problems with grain free diets.
Lamb - low natural taurine content, leading to taurine deficiency.
Legumes - peas and potatoes instead of grain
Limited Ingredient Diets - especially kangaroo or lamb because other novel proteins have less taurine. But they also tend to have more legumes and low meat based protein since they have fewer ingredients and lean more heavily on the potential problems.
Low in Portein - too little meat protein and too much reliance on the plant protein.
But this is still a dog specific problem at this time and seems to be more what is going in to substitute for grains instead of a problem of not having grains.
~ Interesting ...
